Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Samsung Galaxy S4 edges iPhone 5 in sales despite slump ( NeoWin 2013-10-16 )

NeoWin coverage of a report of Top 10 phone sellers via Counterpoint.

Man, they must have spent a while writing that article at NeoWin to carefully avoiding any mention of Windows Phone at all. Notice the careful wording sidestepping the facts in every way when all they had to do was print this ...

Top 10 models sold Globally in August 2013

01 Samsung Galaxy S4 International version

02 Apple iPhone 5-16GB

03 Apple iPhone 5-32GB

04 Nokia Asha 501

05 Samsung Galaxy Note II

06 Samsung Galaxy S III mini

07 Samsung Galaxy S III

08 Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini I9190

09 Nokia Asha 205

10 Nokia 105

There is no Windows Phone to be found in there, including all three Nokias. Note that Counterpoint has some kind of paywall to block the actual article statistics, this is some kind of extract. So where Windows Phone shows up we'll never know unless someone leaks the data. Is it in the Top 15? Top 25?

Review: Windows 8.1 ( NeoWin 2013-10-16 )

Blah blah blah. Service Pack 1 aka Windows 8.1 Blew is here ( not to mention a inexplicable kernel bump from 6.2 to 6.3 ). In a rare moment of honesty the most infamous NeoWin editor states a truth about this service pack ...

The Start button is simply a toggle to open up the Modern UI, nothing more. Right mouse clicking the Start button pulls up a context menu but is still well short of the Start menu that Windows has utilized for the past couple of decades.

But the rest of it is pure MicroFluff, intent on convincing ignorant readers that this thing is anything but a minor service pack. Ah well. I hope they are ready for the backlash.

Naturally the comments veer off into the philosophical, with one adult describing this ridiculous mobile GUI on large screens, with screencaps ...

..... Metro apps run in full screen or in split mode defeats the purpose of Windows, which is the ability to multitask. Further, it's absurd to criticise the taskbar for wasting too much space while defending Metro - just compare Mail (or any other Metro email app) to Outlook and tell me which has more wasted space and which has better functionality. A lot of the time Metro apps simply scale to the available screen size, leaving up to two-thirds of the display blank.

This is what XE.com looks like: http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3669/z1c7.jpg

This is what Random Password Generator looks like: http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/255/ucfu.jpg

This is what Calculator looks like: http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7986/somk.jpg

This is what Travel looks like: http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/2290/xpls.jpg

However, even that cannot penetrate the religious zealotry that drives sycophantic MicroZealots and MetroTards ...

Well you only have yourself to blame. Everyone who opts out of customer experience improvement program loses a voice in the next development cycle.

Change the aggregate telemetry data by contributing and you'll see the product sway in your favor.

Hear that? Sign away your privacy to buy influence. Could Microsoft or any other company ask for more ripe fruit to pick as customers? And I expect he truly believes they would really consider telemetry that defeats their cynical business plans.

There's a good little sheep. Now bleat for me ...

( original photo from here )

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Rumor: Next big Windows update coming in spring 2015 ( NeoWin 2013-10-16 )

Ha! Who really believes that they will sit on this for another year and a half? There are so many variables now that nothing is certain. When this Service Pack fails to do anything except excite the fanboys, and then a possible external hire for CEO has a look at the real books and sees the sales figures they have been hiding and analyzes the cost benefit against outlays, well anything might happen.

And another comment from a typical MetroTard trying to convince an adult that he's not using his screen real estate properly ...

A bigger surface area is better for both touch and a mouse. It's really because you've just gotten use to navigating small UI elements via a mouse. Look at first time PC users. It takes some time for many to get use to navigating a mouse as opposed to watching people, more noticeably children, intuitively understand swipe gesture with their hands. There's nothing special about a start menu.

That's the latest meme too! They are saying 'what good is all that space if you don't use it?' Naturally that theory doesn't come up when talking about RAM or disk space though. Or CPU utilization. In fact, maybe they should start telling us the RAM hogging CPU killing antivirus programs are fantastic because all those resources would be going to waste otherwise. Kids these days.

The fact that he cannot even fathom what multitasking is, and the utility of a collapsible Start Menu over the childish Playskool splat-everything-on-screen approach, well, it illustrates what we are up against. If these 'Tards were listened to by Triumph and Harley-Davidson, motorcycles would come with training wheels. Note, I said "would come with training wheels" NOT "would have training wheels optionally available". That is really the dominant characteristic of MetroTards which is directly comparable to children. Up until their teenage years ( if you're lucky, else it might be mid-twenties ) they have no real moral system, no empathy, in short its narcissism that burns away with age and experience. But Microsoft has chosen to cater to this small subset of the armpit of their user base. And that is how they have lost their Mojo.

Chrome for Windows XP to Receive Support Until 2015 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-16 )

Chrome to support Windows XP until April 2015, one year after Microsoft ends XP support ( NeoWin 2013-10-16 )

Basically they're saying no worries, you'll keep getting your automatic updates for another year and a half ( if you're into that kinda thing, I'm not ).

Now just imagine if at that point XP is still the number two operating system, and Windows 8.1 and 8.0 and Vista are three, four and five respectively. Then you will have two surreal situations at the same time ...

{1} A company discontinuing "sales" of its product to the 2nd largest field of available customers. That would be like gasoline or tires not being sold for Fords but only GM's, as well as minor players like Dodge, Audi, Lamborghini ...

{2} A company discontinuing "sales" of a product that it already developed and needs no new design changes since the platform, XP, is undergoing no such changes. Yeah, they make it sound like it costs money to "develop" for an old OS but that's a load of horsesh!t. That development was done long ago, and this end of the cycle is the sweet spot, all gain and no pain. It is what companies live for. It's the profit end of the product life-cycle.

Yep, so that's the inexplicable world of planned obsolescence that Microsoft has pioneered. It has taken the thousands of years old concept of supply and demand and twisted it into a pretzel.

Interview: We chat with the creator of StartIsBack+ ( NeoWin 2013-10-16 )

There are quite a few of Start menu programs for Windows 8 to choose from but as Microsoft gets ready to launch Windows 8.1 later this week, many of those programs are now getting updates. One of them is StartIsBack, which recently released a new version, StartIsBack+, with a number of new features. Neowin got the main developer of the program, Tihiy, to talk about StartIsBack+, his reactions to Windows 8.1 and more

Decent interview but as expected NeoWin didn't demonstrate enough integrity to put a link to Tihiy's site or to here at MSFN. Jorge, you may want to add this to the Start Menu thread!

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Xbox One won't support real names for online users at launch ( NeoWin 2013-10-17 )

The use of nicknames on online gaming services such as Xbox Live has been the norm ever since they started, and many online gamers prefer to use their nicknames in order to protect their privacy. However, there's been a movement to use real names in online services such as Facebook and Twitter and Microsoft seems like they are still planning to offer that option for Xbox One gamers at some point in the future.

That sounds like another Xbox backtrack to me. They intended to do away with gamers' anonymous nicks and move towards real names. But now that is on hold. Regardless, the sheeple better wake up. There are moves afoot everywhere to hijack the personal computer space. And Microsoft is knee-deep in it.

NSA chief Keith Alexander expected to resign ( NeoWin 2013-10-17 )

Embattled National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander is expected to resign next year, ending his eight years in the top position.

According to U.S officials speaking anonymously, Alexander has formalised plans to leave early 2014. Reuters reports his civilian deputy John Chris Inglis is also expected to retire by the years end.

The Army Generals position was previously rocked by Edward Snowdens leaks that revealed the huge extent of NSAs spying capabilities, causing a backlash from the public.

~sigh~ That's the old tried-and-true Washington two-step. Happens all the time. They get a high-profile lightning-rod to resign, hoping he will take a large chunk of the controversy with him, and thus short-circuiting the public discontent and disapproval ratings. Rarely works out according to plan though, except maybe in the media outlets who trump it up to no end. If the discontent is real, it won't make a difference.

And it's kind of like what Microsoft is doing in many ways, especially the fraudulent Start Button which will receive lots of press from people not knowing what they are talking about ( Start Button returns! From where? The beta?! ). But the press will not be able to save the government this time, even if they wanted to. Nor will the tech press likely be able to lie convincingly enough about the Start Button to save Microsoft. People will rightly see this fraudulent button as a kick in their teeth.

[JorgeA]

A couple of cyberprivacy-promoting ideas out there:

Researcher argues for open hardware to defend against NSA spying

While there is no foolproof defense against government spying, snooping by entities like the National Security Agency could be made far more difficult through the use of Internet infrastructure built on open-source hardware, an academic researcher says.

In an Op-Ed piece published Tuesday in The New York Times, Eli Dourado, a research fellow at George Mason University, argued that companies using open hardware would be in a better position to detect backdoors or vulnerabilities planted by the NSA or any other government agency.

Lavabit’s Founder Has An Idea: Make His Code Open Source

Tightly encrypted data was among Lavabit’s selling points, so Mr. Levison said he’s considering publicizing the code that made it work to allow other developers to build their own secure email services. He isn’t interested in running the service on his own because he doesn’t think it could stay secure in the U.S.

Releasing that code, on the other hand, would allow other entrepreneurs to build “10,000 Lavabits” on their own, Mr. Levison said in an interview Wednesday. Opening the software up to developers would also allow him to build a business providing technical support for their services, a business for which he’s now seeking investors. But a resurrection of the old Lavabit looks unlikely.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Additional security news:

Judge: Google’s Tracking Not Harmful

Ridiculous -- so you have to wait 'til Google (and therefore the NSA) know everything about you, such that they can enforce a single-party state by threatening to embarrass all potential opposition by disclosing private information, before you can "prove" harm? Gimme a f******g break.

Microsoft security guru: Abusing data should be a felony

No comment, this is just too rich. Just one quote, though:

One technique Microsoft has been taking for about two decades to keep its friends close and potential enemies closer is to share its Windows source code with other nations' governments and their intelligence agencies, figuring these governments use its technology so they would have an interest in protecting it.

[emphasis added]

--JorgeA

[TELVM]

Emphasis mine ...

Corrected.

The alternatives I'm looking at are some flavors of Linux, mainly Netrunner ...

Thanks . It's interesting to compare what's happening in Windows against this declaration of principles:

"... We want to give you, the user the feeling again, that you actually _own your computer_, that you’re in control and have the freedom to make it work any way you want it ..."

... I expect by that point, 10 years tops, that Windows itself will have collapsed like Blackberry seems to have now, and Android or some later variation of Linux will be ubiquitous on all form factors. Android is already coming to the desktop, and Microsoft will soon have to make a choice. Will they use their x86 expertise and make a workstation OS to keep that market or will they keep playing in the children's sandbox where they will lose every single time? Will Android or other operating systems target x86 chips? Will Intel and AMD even keep making x86? It's all unknown and all unimaginable really. And we have Microsoft to blame. They decided to launch a frontal assault at Russia in Winter ( mobile market ) and are leaving their flank undefended ( x86 ). They will lose on both fronts with their current strategy ...

Thanks.

Only the Mongols have succeeded in defeating Russia during the winter (they were extremely tough customers and did so by choice).

... Screw the lot of 'em. In fact take advantage of their ignorance and relieve them of their big bulky desktops when they toss them due to peer pressure ...

Now THAT is being smart in my book .

[Formfiller]

We've seen this in so many fields, the consumerization-commercialization that ruins something. It has happened steadily in music with a rapid decent, a race to the bottom in the 80's, the 90's, 2000's. We watched it happen but also noticed that the classic stuff not only survives, but thrives. The Stones and many others are still touring while so much crap from the 90's and beyond is already collecting dust. Even in the studio and onstage we saw equipment evolve and devolve to electronic crap but hardcore Marshalls and many other tube amps, effects and guitars from 30-50 years ago are priceless.

Arts and crafts peak, and once they do, they go downhill.

Take literature: I would say it peaked in the 19th century around with Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Goethe, Dickens, Tolstoy and went downhill from there. Sure, there were some great works in the 20th century, but they haven't reached the greatness of Brothers Karamazov etc. and the 21st century so far is an utter trash heap compared to the 19th.

Music: You've said it yourself. And by the way, where's the new Ninth Symphony? That story is pretty similar as with literature here.

And arts peak far sooner now: Movies, despite a far younger medium than the above, have already peaked, too. 70s and 80s (and many 90s) films wipe the floor with most newer productions. Even straight action films twenty-thirty years ago had a lot more heart and skill than today's "teal and orange" abortions.

Computer games: The retro scene is thriving, and for very good reasons.

Engineering: The dumberization in computing, the still unmatched designs and reliability of "classic cars", CRT monitors from 12 years ago often have STILL superior color representation than the newest flat displays (along with no ghosting and blurring), analog radios from the 20s can still work while the newest digital models die due to missing codecs and stuff, analog TV was able to withstand anything and produce a picture, while the newest digital TVs die once the signal becomes slightly distorted. There are examples galore here.

Stuff turns to s*** a lot faster nowadays, and progress moves backwards quite a lot.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Formfiller

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

We've seen this in so many fields, the consumerization-commercialization that ruins something. It has happened steadily in music with a rapid decent, a race to the bottom in the 80's, the 90's, 2000's. We watched it happen but also noticed that the classic stuff not only survives, but thrives. The Stones and many others are still touring while so much crap from the 90's and beyond is already collecting dust. Even in the studio and onstage we saw equipment evolve and devolve to electronic crap but hardcore Marshalls and many other tube amps, effects and guitars from 30-50 years ago are priceless.

Arts and crafts peak, and once they do, they go downhill.

Take literature: I would say it peaked in the 19th century around with Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Goethe, Dickens, Tolstoy and went downhill from there. Sure, there were some great works in the 20th century, but they haven't reached the greatness of Brothers Karamazov etc. and the 21st century so far is an utter trash heap compared to the 19th.

Music: You've said it yourself. And by the way, where's the new Ninth Symphony? That story is pretty similar as with literature here.

And arts peak far sooner now: Movies, despite a far younger medium than the above, have already peaked, too. 70s and 80s (and many 90s) films wipe the floor with most newer productions. Even straight action films twenty-thirty years ago had a lot more heart and skill than today's "teal and orange" abortions.

Computer games: The retro scene is thriving, and for very good reasons.

Engineering: The dumberization in computing, the still unmatched designs and reliability of "classic cars", CRT monitors from 12 years ago often have STILL superior color representation than the newest flat displays (along with no ghosting and blurring), analog radios from the 20s can still work while the newest digital models die due to missing codecs and stuff, analog TV was able to withstand anything and produce a picture, while the newest digital TVs die once the signal becomes slightly distorted. There are examples galore here.

Stuff turns to s*** a lot faster nowadays, and progress moves backwards quite a lot.

Dittos. And the acceleration we see now is from a smaller world, ironically because of computers and instant communication. There is also an element of suicide in the form of teaching modern business to be centered around efficiency, low overhead, fast development, maximizing profit and other variations on that theme. I think I have mentioned how this trickled into the USA boardrooms in the 1980's with JIT just in time manufacturing and other things that we originally exported to Japan post-war to help them remake their economy and society. The next thing was them exporting transistor radios and then cars and finally exporting back that original mass production philosophy that our companies were eager to use to please Wall Street.

The only problem with the hyper-assembly line concept and the targeting of the mass market is that quality is the first casualty. The second is safety. But quality is gone completely. There is no artistic integrity in this business model, its selling the most widgets made for the least cost of production for the highest price possible to the dumbest buyers they can find. There is some give and take on those four components, but the race is to the bottom and the most "successful" according to Wall Street analysts will exploit all four.

Because of the modern world this recipe has spread faster and wider than ever before and I think it is literally Business 101 in schools. CNBC and our friendly analysts drill it into our heads every day. I wouldn't be surprised now to find some formerly fabulous artisan making handmade furniture in a cellar in Timbuktu jumping on the internet to learn ways to cut corners and reduce costs and get cheaper paint and, well you know the rest. It's wholesale corruption of our very psyche.

Two great examples are cameras and monitors. The rapid changeover targeting the widest but least savvy demographic wiped out superior legacy equipment overnight. While you certainly can get a great camera like an expensive DSLR, 99% of them are still devolving ( even the basic point-shoot models are becoming rare thanks to cellphones ). There will be a huge hole in the preserved photographic record of the early 21st century. CRTs were definitely bulky and power hungry, but when I use one today I am quickly reminded how bad the consumer grade LCDs suck, in every way except size. Because of that consumerist detour we postponed the move into RGB style discrete LED displays and killed CRT dead in its tracks. I'm not complaining about their loss, I'm actually complaining about the detour taken for the sole purpose of swamping the world with mass produced crap, where quality has zero consideration.

I originally saw this coming because of the way that the MP3 vs WAV file battle unfolded. We were using MP3 as early as 1994 for short online previews of CD releases. That was a good purpose for a lossy format. But then the AudioTards, perfect forerunners of MetroTards, decided to accept MP3 in lieu of a lossless original. These were easy marks for Apple and others to exploit because if you offered a CD or player holding one hour of tunes versus ten hours, stupidity will select quantity over quality every time. Note that I am not criticizing MP3 at all. I'm criticizing the 'Tards. MP3 can be configured to be less lossy and near lossless. But the "good enough" crowd of MetroTards, I mean AudioTards shaped the entire future here.

Such mistakes are not possible when there are intelligent people available to kick them in their @sses out the door onto the street and hire someone else instead. Without that control, we end up with all that we see today, or most of it anyway. Hence this battle with Microsoft, who is doing exactly this and we spotted it back in early 2011 with even earlier warnings prior. It's patently transparent that this is their cynical plan. Microsoft's adults left the mother ship, leaving unintelligent and inexperienced fools in their place. Quality no longer drives the ship, instead it is merely petty jealousy of their hated competitors like Apple. The irony of copying Apple is apparently lost upon them, and their sycophants.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Facebook Advertisers Get More of Your Data ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-17 )

Under the new program being tested on some Facebook members, advertisers will be able to track you outside of Facebook as well.

Facebook explains two potential scenarios by way of example. In the first one, you visit a custom bicycle retailer's website, create a profile, start designing a bike and stop halfway. This advertiser can now track you back to Facebook and hit you with ads requesting that you come back and complete your purchase.

Alternatively, app developers can see if you've downloaded an app and haven't used it in a while (or at all). They can then send Facebook ads your way encouraging you to boot up the app and perhaps pump some money into it perhaps a game with microtransactions, such as "Plants vs. Zombies 2."

The bad news is that once the change goes into effect (it will roll out slowly over the next few months), Facebook will automatically start funneling your data to advertisers.

The good news is that you have the ability to opt out of Custom Audiences, but it takes a little work.

[...]

Lots more in the linked article including the hoops needed to disengage the spyware. That word, spyware is truly appropriate now. This is government approved spyware on multiple levels. They are literally getting you coming and going now. The spooks get you at their leisure and Facebook gives the advertising cabal carte blanche access to you wherever you are, even outside of Facebook. I can't wait to see the next step after this! It's a brave new world.


Interview: We chat with the creator of Classic Shell 4.0 ( NeoWin 2013-10-17 )

In May, we chatted with Ivo Beltchev, the main developer behind the free program Classic Shell, which had a massive surge of new downloads following the launch of Windows 8, thanks to its Start menu. Recently, version 4.0 of Classic Shell was released, which not only is compatible with Windows 8.1 but also has a new "Windows 7" style of Start menu.

We decided to check back in with Beltchev to learn more about Classic Shell 4.0, how he feels about Windows 8.1 bringing back the Start button but not a full Start menu and more.

This is a shorter interview compared to the one with Tihiy published yesterday. Ivo answers their loaded question nicely, "What do you think of Microsoft's decision to put in a Start button, but not a full Start menu, in Windows 8.1?" ...

It feels to me like too little too late. We were asking for a full start menu on the desktop, which is optimized for precise devices like keyboard and mouse, and can play well with other desktop applications. Instead we got a shortcut to the start screen, which is optimized for touch devices and fat fingers. Both interfaces have their place, but I think the desktop users are being undeserved. Which is a great opportunity for tools like Classic Shell

And once again NeoWin fails to use the minimum expected journalistic integrity to even display a single link back to Classic Shell or any of the sites where Ivo and XPclient frequent.

EDIT: spacing

Edited October 18, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Microsoft to host Windows 8.1 'Ask Me Anything' session on Reddit today ( TechSpot 2013-10-17 )

Microsoft to hold a Reddit AMA and more to promote Windows 8.1 today ( NeoWin 2013-10-17 )

Windows 8.1 Reddit AMA session reveals development secrets like ... Katy Perry? ( NeoWin 2013-10-17 )

TechSpot and NeoWin articles discussing a Reddit session with Microsoft Engineers fielding questions, already completed ...

Hi! We're Windows 8.1 engineers. Ask us anything! ( Reddit 2013-10-17 )

Well most of you already know exactly how well this would go. In fact the NeoKids commented about this very thing, calling Microsoft crazy for talking to the public, calling it a cesspool.

It's over now but there is much comedy value in that thread. It will take days to read it. The Softies only answered a few questions here and there and you might even feel sorry for them a bit since they are most likely not the evil decision makers, however they are most likely all-in on this Playskool madness.

Mostly though, there is comedy gold. The Redditors knew that they weren't really going to be answered so most just decided to go for broke.

First off, one answer from a Softie to a serious question about purposely hiding the local account option when installing ...

As for the local account link we tried a lot of iterations of this screen. Ultimately users consistently found it difficult to understand the difference between a local account and connected account. We optimized our design around connected account because of the much higher user satisfaction once they enable that feature.

I literally had to read that answer twice to fully grasp that the engineers are overwhelmed by a form of Stockholm Syndrome sprinkled with fantasy rationalizations about users actually enjoying the pain they inflict. They're sadists and the customers are masochists, simple as that. I guess that makes their job very efficient indeed.

Now for the fun ( just the tip of the iceberg, trust me ) ...

Does Windows 8.1 still have the NSA backdoors in it?

---

What's it like to toil, soulless, in Hell?

---

Why did you design an OS for a touchscreen interface and then install it on non-touch devices?

Also answer the NSA questions.

---

Why godd*mn it why?

---

ITT: Why Windows 8 sucks

---

This is the worst f*cking AMA ever.

---

Dear 8 and 8.1 team: F*ck you.

Sincerely, Every one on Earth.

---

Why did you break Windows?

---

How many of you use classic shell?

---

A couple months ago I read a report that windows worked closely with the NSA by embedding a trojan that allows the NSA to spy on windows 8 users.

Has this been removed in 8.1?

---

Dear Windows,

Please f*ck off with the tablet UI. I have a computer and I want to use it like one.

Sincerely, People that don't buy your stuff anymore

---

You guys are on the wrong team. F*ck your product, f*ck your model, and f*ck you.

I spit out coffee too many times to count If you need a laugh, expand your way through all the nested comments. Humor is good for the soul.

[Tripredacus]

After reading some of the early 8.1 (Australian) Adopters on TechNet yesterday, I decided to see how well my Windows 8 image updates. For example, some users complained of not being able to run recovery anymore, or 8.1 creating additional partitions.

Well it took approximately 18 hours to download the 3.6GB update... Its supposedly installing now.

[jaclaz]

I will risk some (CLEARLY OT) considerations.

After the BADD ("Big Adobe Data Defraud") comes the FUDD ("Frankly Unneeded Dumb Dissertation")
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2425254,00.asp

"The main headline is that 3 million credit card numbers were hacked from Adobe. While this is a serious breach by any measure, to Adobe's credit the numbers seem to have been encrypted," Aaron Titus, chief policy officer and general counsel for Identity Finder, told PCMag.

"The under-reported, but far more worrying story is that hackers apparently have obtained 40GB of Adobe source code, which may include Adobe's most popular products, Adobe Acrobat and ColdFusion," he continued. "Security professionals in organizations around the world should be on high alert for an increase in Acrobat-related attacks as hackers analyze the code for possible zero-day exploits."

Thank goodness, someone has still some common sense, and more than that some good sense of humour :

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/adobe-to-announce-source-code-customer-data-breach/

Eric
October 4, 2013 at 11:19 am

To the pirates that took the source code for Adobe Acrobat,

If I give you a list of bugs to fix could you address them and send me a working copy back? I will be more than happy to pay you for your efforts. Despite Adobe’s claims to the contrary, I’m certain you have my billing info so please charge me a reasonable fee for your work.

There are issues that Adobe has not bothered to address that have persisted for the last 10 versions. Hopefully the code is now in the hands of a team that actually cares about the product.

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

I will risk some (CLEARLY OT) considerations.

After the BADD ("Big Adobe Data Defraud") comes the FUDD ("Frankly Unneeded Dumb Dissertation")

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2425254,00.asp

"The main headline is that 3 million credit card numbers were hacked from Adobe. While this is a serious breach by any measure, to Adobe's credit the numbers seem to have been encrypted," Aaron Titus, chief policy officer and general counsel for Identity Finder, told PCMag.

"The under-reported, but far more worrying story is that hackers apparently have obtained 40GB of Adobe source code, which may include Adobe's most popular products, Adobe Acrobat and ColdFusion," he continued. "Security professionals in organizations around the world should be on high alert for an increase in Acrobat-related attacks as hackers analyze the code for possible zero-day exploits."

Thank goodness, someone has still some common sense, and more than that some good sense of humour :

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/adobe-to-announce-source-code-customer-data-breach/

Eric

October 4, 2013 at 11:19 am

To the pirates that took the source code for Adobe Acrobat,

If I give you a list of bugs to fix could you address them and send me a working copy back? I will be more than happy to pay you for your efforts. Despite Adobe’s claims to the contrary, I’m certain you have my billing info so please charge me a reasonable fee for your work.

There are issues that Adobe has not bothered to address that have persisted for the last 10 versions. Hopefully the code is now in the hands of a team that actually cares about the product.

jaclaz

There are just so many questions every time this happens ...

What idi0t put private data and source code on public facing servers?

Who was the cloud or storage provider?

Who managed the "network" and provided security?

Now that everyone has been hacked and pilfered, isn't it time to chart the information so the public can determine who is reliable and who is useless on the backend? For example plot all these big hacks and look for Oracle or Microsoft Azure or Symantec or IBM or whatever or whoever pops up most often. That's vital information. Maybe no one company will be the common denominator, I don't know. But maybe one is.

The real crime here is that they blackout this hard information completely and send you an email telling you to watch for unexplained charges and offering a year of identity theft protection.

And something else ... I'll bet what's happening is that they are obligated to NOT disclose their hosting and security providers. I'll bet it is line #1 in the service contract. Self-serving EULA's and NDA's in contracts are among the most evil of concepts we have seen recently because they protect failures from being identified and corrected, and punished accordingly.

[ROTS]

Lets get down to business.

1. Intel does not want people, to scrap the parts of their computers, so you can resell, and recycle your machine. Like I do not need a new computer to view HD, I just need a really powerfull ( but cheap ) graphics card ).

2. Intel wants people to buy new and only, products.

3. Intel wants to keep you dumb.

4. Microsoft ( goverment controlled ) wants everybody to become a wireless user, so they can tweak the law enough to make home computers have barely if not any privacy as wireless phone.

6. They enjoy watching us dumb stupid consumers dance around like monkeys.

A. Microsoft Works/Office ( on the Mac known as Adobe CS-X )

B. Buy a new computer to watch HD video on a 20" display.

C. Make you buy a bigger display for your living room, and private rec-room ( AKA your desktop ).

D. Install a **** network camera, and security software over your landlines ( guess who is watching your home ).

E. Buy a computer with Camera, that can turn on without the light.

F. that helps DOS attackers, and hackers infiltrate your network better.

5.Microsoft does not value your privacy alongside, Yahoo, Sprint, any landlines company makes money off selling your information. I don't know about Google, but hey. The law is unbalanced everywhere you go, and it keeps getting piledrived into the ground because everybody wants everybody to leads everybody astray.

Edited October 18, 2013 by ROTS

[Kelsenellenelvian]

A. Microsoft Works/Office ( on the Mac known as Adobe CS-X )

These are not ANYWHERE near the same thing WTH????

Microsoft Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works

Microsoft Office = http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/

Adobe CS-X = http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/collection.jsp?collID=1&platform=Macintosh

Works and office close but not still the same

Adobe CS-X?? COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the previous 2.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Kelsenellenelvian